Vettel leads first free practice of the Indian GP 2013
Sebastian Vettel has topped the first practice session today. The championship leader set a best time of 1m 26.683s.The German can potentially claim his fourth world championship title in India and looks confident to win the Indian GP. His teammate meanwhile clocked a 1m 26.871s lap time,ending up in second.
It's the Aussie driver's last outing here and he will want to finish in the podium this weekend. Mercedes driver, Nico Rosberg had a close fight with the Red Bull drivers and lapped the BIC in 1m 26.899s. Romain Grosjean set a quicker lap than his teammate Kimi, (who isn't in the top 5) coming in fourth.Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton made it to the top 5 with a 1m 27.227s lap time.
McLaren have tweaked the car setup and this helped Jenson Button to take sixth (1m 27.335s) while team mate, Sergio Perez was slightly slower to finish seventh (1m 27.416s).The Ferraris didn't do well with Massa being the quickest for the Italian team, clocking a 1m 27.692s lap time, Fernando Alonso who is currently second in the world championship standings managed to only drive six laps during practice as his Ferrari had a problem with the gearbox. However, his time of 1m 28.214s still makes him 12th quickest in the grid.
Sauber have been impressive for a middle-order team, their driver Hulkenberg (1m 27.770s) finished ninth, ahead of Williams driver Valtteri Bottas who managed to make it to the top 10 with a lap time of 1m 27.800s. Toro Rosso driver, Jean-Eric Vergne meanwhile was quicker than his team mate Danniel Ricciardo to finish 11th while Danniel in the second Torro Rosso managed 13th place followed by Pastor Maldonado (1m 28.342s) in the second Williams.
Force India's quickest driver was Adrian Sutil, with a 1m 28.468s lap time ahead of Esteban Gutierrez in the second Sauber (1m 28.538s). Kimi Raikkonen looked slow and finished 17th with a 1m 28.730s lap time. Paul di Resta rested out of FP1 and Force India gave rookie, James Calado a chance. The young driver finished 18th and could have got closer to Sutil if he had not spun out.
Caterham driver, Van der Garde finshed 19th followed by Jules Bianchi from Marussia. The last two cars were driven by Charles Pic of Caterham and Marussia driver, Max Chilton both clocking lap times in the 1m 30s zone. Free practice 2 will start by 2pm.